Our Christmas Card

Sorry if we missed mailing you a card! Here are some winter / Christmas pictures and our summary of the year.

Merry Christmas! Our 2007 was full of fun family time & new learning experiences. Our highlights include trips to Disney World & the Outer Banks of North Carolina with extended family, a trip to New York City, & lots of family visits. We also worked hard out in the yard, planting bushes & trees & putting soil & bark down. Our yard almost looks finished now! Kevin built a fence around our yard that looks beautiful. Of course, with a house there are always more projects to do. Next year we hope to finish our basement, build garden grow boxes, & put up a shed. Kevin is busy keeping up with the Young Men in our ward & following BYU sports. Terrah spends her time keeping up the house, going on walks, reading, dabbling into craft projects, & hosting our new little bun in the oven-- due March 29th. Of course, she spends most of her time chasing Cora around! Cora has had a big year learning to eat solid food, walk, run, talk, giggle & so many other skills! She loved her "Mommy & Me' swim class in the summer, & can now open the door & shout "Daddy!" when she hears the garage door open. She loves salmon, kidney beans, kisses, being outside, Curious George, her doll stroller, & babies. We hope you & your family had a very terrific year too! We are grateful for your friendship & love. We hope you have a Merry Christmas full of love, laughter, & awe of the miracle of the Savior's life & birth.

Love, Kevin, Terrah, and Cora

More Christmas Pictures

I got a CD of Christmas pictures in the mail from my parents, so I thought I'd post a few more Christmas pictures from our holiday trip.

Shad and Jen, with Butterscotch and Oreo, on Christmas morning.

Cora feeding her new baby... it takes a lot of concentration! That baby must have been really hungry, she was eating all morning!

Cora loved carting the baby around in this little carseat carrier my parents got for Christmas.

Mom with Puppy, and Shad and Jen's dogs.

Our little family.
Christmas dinner. Mmmm! We have lasagna for Christmas dinner almost every year.
Cora loved crawling through this tunnel to and from the little Dora tent.
Pup enjoyed it too!

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Cora was fascinated by all the new fun things she found in her stocking. She studiously would unwrap each package and wanted to get the toys OUT! I think next year I'll need to remember to take off all the boxes, plastic and ties and wrap just the present so she can play with it immediately! Cora loved playing with each toy, but also got excited when we handed her yet another present to open. After the first few presents, she totally understood that there was going to be something cool inside the paper.

This mini-doodle will be a perfect church toy!
Kissie and Cora unwrapping presents. I think it was about this time that Cora had to take a break from opening presents and take a nap! It was a pretty stimulating morning for her. After her mid-present nap, she was very refreshed and ready to go for more.
One of the biggest hits of the morning-- the Little Einsteins table set-- a sippy, bowl and cup. The only problem is she wants to push the food out of the way so she can see the characters. Cora also especially loved her newborn Cabbage Patch doll, the great books she got, new crayons, her cars, and the grandchild presents Kissie and Pata received and shared with her. What a fun Christmas Day! Kevin and I also received some great presents, thankyou to everyone! We love them!
The rest of our stay in Boise was great too! Kevin and Dad went to see the BYU - BSU basketball game, the girls went to get a pedicure, we saw National Treasure (while Cora had fun with a babysitter), and we RELAXED, played lots of fun games and ate yummy food. We (especially the guys) spent a lot of time playing the new Wii. And we went swimming at the YMCA-- I should have pictures of that coming soon. Cora LOVED the kiddie pool area, the big kids slide that she went down with Kevin, and especially jumping off the edge in the little bit deeper part of the pool. It was so much fun swimming, and we ran into some friends from high school too, which was also great.

Christmas Morning

Cora, trying to figure out what is going on! She loved her Elmo stocking, and would point to it and say "Elmo" all the time. She also loved all the fun and yummy things Kissie packed it with!
The pink pajama girls-- we missed you Liz! We'll have to get a pic later with all of us, when my pajamas fit a little bit better!
Dora coloring book and goldfish-- Cora was in heaven. She also learned a ton of new words while we were in Boise. I think it must have been being around more people and wanting to vocalize more. It was great! Her little vocabulary is increasing in leaps and bounds!

Our Christmas

Christmas festivities started with a little pre-Christmas gift opening. We opened the presents from Kevin's family before we left. Cora especially loved the big silver bow and the gift tags. Thankyou to everyone for the lovely gifts!
We got to Boise Friday afternoon, after driving in great sunny weather on some stretches of snow/ice packed roads. Not too much fun, but it could have been worse. It snowed on and off pretty much the whole week in Boise. Cora had a lot of fun in the snow with Pata, especially when he'd make her snowballs. She loved holding them, trying to pick them up, sitting on the big ones, and even threw a couple.
Cora and Pup had a good time together too. Whenever Cora saw Pup, she'd yell 'DOG!'. She got braver after a few days and would pet him and point out his eyes, nose, and ears. Shad and Jen brought their two dogs up for Christmas too, and Cora loved them as well. She would bend down and talk to them in a high-pitched voice, but they were too quick for her to pet most of the time!
My lens is fogged up, but it's a cute picture of Kissie, Pata, Cora and Pup in front of my parents' house.

Christmastime

Pumpkin Bars-- check
Fudge-- check
Gingersnaps-- check
Chocolate Mint brownies-- check
Carmel popcorn-- check (Thanks Timmerie!)

Well, we got to make and eat a lot of sweets this last week as I made and delivered some of our neighbor Christmas goodies. Yum! It's been fun to exchange goodies and gifts with our neighbors-- we live in such a great neighborhood! Only a few things more are left on my goodies cravings list. We are doing a little bit more baking this week, maybe we'll manage to check all the items off!

What a relief, we got almost all of our Christmas gifts bought before Thanksgiving. I love being able to do that, then we can focus on real Christmas traditions and activities in December and spend time as a family, without going to the crazy malls! We've had a fun week. We went out to dinner and to a lovely wedding reception, did our holiday baking and deliveries -- most of them!-- are working on our Christmas cards, had a fun FHE with our group, and watched the third Bourne movie (thumbs up!).

On Saturday we went to a BYU basketball game. It was cheap ticket family day, so we thought we'd give it an attempt and see if Cora liked it better than last year! She had a great time getting on and off her chair, clapping when others were clapping, saying 'oh no' when the crowd ooohed, growling when she saw Cosmo, the cougar mascot, and especially, watching the little kids behind us. She did great, even though it went way after her bedtime.

Saturday we also stopped by the Honda dealership to investigate why our low tire pressure light has been going off and on. We stopped by earlier in the week and they just filled it up and said to watch it. Well, the light went on the next day! When we took it in on Saturday, they found multiple 3-4 inch nails in the one tire. Crazy! Who knows where I drove through all that?


Yesterday we had some of Kevin's family over for the afternoon. Gordon and Terri came from Alabama to visit Grandmother, and it was fun to see them-- we haven't seen them since our wedding! Cora warmed up to them fairly well and even gave kisses by the end of their visit.

Christmas Preview

I was attempting a Christmas card picture this morning, but this was the best I could get. Cora is so fascinated with the camera, it was all I could do to snap a shot before she'd jump up and try to grab the camera from me! I got her to sit still a second longer by letting her hold the baby Jesus from her nativity, but we are still going to have to do some shots with better lighting when Kevin is there to distract her!

We are all feeling better for the most part-- Cora and I both had some sort of stomach bug last week which is all gone now-- but we also both have a little bit of a cough left. Hopefully it will clear up soon so we can enjoy the Christmas season even more!

Snickerdoodles

I have a list of holiday treats I am craving that I'd like to make sometime in December... if we had a large army to help me not eat them all! Here's one that I already was craving and made in November!

Snickerdoodles-- The best snickerdoodle recipe I've tried so far.

Cream Together:
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs

Mix together and add to above mixture:
2 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp. baking soda

Chill for one hour. Roll into 1 inch balls and roll into cinnamon mixture (2 tbsp. cinnamon to 2 tbsp. sugar). Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes.

Want to know what else is on my cravings list? Pumpkin bars, carmel popcorn, fudge, apple crisp, gingersnaps..... the list goes on and on!

New Skills

Cora is still in love with her binkie. We keep saying we're going to wean her from it, but after the next trip, when she's done teething, when she's not sick... it just hasn't happened yet. Maybe after Christmas! When she wakes up from her naps we put the binkie in a basket until the next time she goes to sleep. Well, I was cooking yesterday and she came in with a binkie in her mouth! I thought she must have just found one we didn't take care of, so I took it away. Then she comes out to the kitchen with another binkie in her mouth! I thought we'd been really careless, and took that one away too. Then she comes out with the whole binkie basket and one in her mouth! What a tricky little girl! Her arms are getting longer and longer, and she just decided to take matters into her own hands. So now the binkie basket has a new home, higher up.
And then! The same day! I was getting dinner out of the oven, and turned around to see her sitting on one of the barstools! She was so proud of herself. Now, I just have to hope she finds a way back down, it's kind of a long drop for a little girl.

Cora has had a terrible cough the last few weeks. It has come and gone in severity, but was especially bad last weekend. We took her to a new doctor on Sunday (one closer by that Id' been wanting to try-- and he was so nice! We might have to switch from our other great pediatrician just for the convenience factor!). He though she had the croup, but two different strains in a row since it had been so long. She got some medicine and is doing better, hopefully it will be all gone soon. Cora now is 31 inches tall and weighs 22 pounds-- still just a little little girl!

We were hoping to finally get a good night sleep since the cough was going away, but we spent most of last night taking care of poor Cora while she threw up. Today is catch-up sleep, laundry, and house cleaning day as a result! She is doing tons better today, just not having an appetite yet and a little bit clingy. Hopefully she will get better in the next day or two so we can go through with our fun weekend plans! It must have been some 12 hour flu bug or something.

Snow Day!

We woke up to about 3 inches of snow this morning! Kevin hurried and shovelled it before taking off for a youth temple trip, and it snowed another inch or two while he was gone! Cora went outside to keep him company on his second snow-shovelling outing. I think Cora had a lot of fun! She did have a hard time getting around, especially getting up after she sat in the snow-- and the fluffy coat didn't make that easier. But she loved trying to make snowballs and giving her snowballs to her daddy and exploring the snow-covered yard.

Christmas Decorating

We started putting up some of our Christmas decorations this week! Cora thought it was pretty neat to have so many shiny things to explore and boxes to play in. She's become quite the little climber in the last few weeks, and loves to get on top of chairs, boxes, and even the coffee table. So she especially loved this stepstool and claimed it for her very own. Hopefully we'll get Christmas put up all the way this week! It's been a more 'slowly but surely' process than the 'all in one day' I'm used to without a toddler!

Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a terrific Thanksgiving week with Kevin's family coming to town to celebrate with us. We had yummy food, got some Christmas shopping done, and had fun hanging out as a family. Kevin and I also went to the BYU-Utah game, and although we didn't win the recliners and tv from RC Willey (1 in 5 chances! Oh well!) we had so much fun watching the exciting game. Go cougars!

Kisses

New Favorites

Some of Cora's favorite things of the moment:

Remote: She is fascinated. It's no longer enough though, to just hold it and push random buttons, she gets frustrated if the buttons she pushes don't do anything! She'll point it at the tv and say 'toons, 'toons. She doesn't watch a lot of television I promise!

Stepstool: I got her a stepstool so she could look out the window easier. It gets taken all over the house to help her get up on chairs and other things. She is becoming a little climber! She also loves this chair, and sometimes gets upset with me if I'm sitting in it when she wants to be in it. Good thing there are two of them in the room!

Crayons: Drawing has really clicked with her the last little while. I got some butcher paper and she colors on it on the kitchen floor and thinks that's pretty neat.

Blowing bubbles: New skill! I just thought she was obsessed with drinking the bathwater (which she is too, but oh well!). Then one day Kevin noticed she was doing bubbles! She does love bathtime, and bath is one of her new words this week, along with banana and a few others.



Popcorn Popping: I started singing Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree to her while I'm changing her diaper. She caught on so fast! I think it was only the second or third time I did it, she popped her little popcorn hands right along with me!

Another new word: Cora loves to look at a mini quiet book with pictures of Jesus in it during church. She's caught on and answers "Jesus" when we ask who is in the pictures in the book or the pictures on the wall at our house or church.

Others: Cora loves to climb up on our office chair to look at the family photos better. She LOVES the calendar my mom made that is full of family pictures and will stare at the pictures for hours, and gets upset if I'm using the calendar and she can't for the moment (unfortunately this means I can no longer paperclip reminder notes tot he calendar!). She likes watching her mobile more now than she even has, and loves making the animal sounds when they go by. And I think lima beans are still her favorite food, even surpassing cheese, and maybe even graham crackers!

And her last new thing-- probably not a 'favorite' but a success story-- she has points through on four molars now! I've heard the second four aren't as bad as the first, so we are keeping our fingers crossed!

Ut-Oh!

Cora opened her first door all by herself this morning. Oh no! It looks like we've entered yet another stage of childproofing.

Cora reaching for the graham crackers-- her favorite.

It's going to be a girl!

Well, probably! The ultrasound tech said she'd give it a 92% chance of being a little sister for Cora. We are so excited! They didn't do a video for us of the ultrasound, but they did give us a cd of pictures, so some of the images are attached. Our new baby girl is due March 28th.

Our Little Flamingo

Cora and dad getting ready to go trick-or-treating.

Cora got carried part of the way! She loved to run around, but she was getting pretty tired too.

I think Cora's favorite part of trick-or-treating might have been ringing the doorbell. When we got to the doors, she'd raise her arms up and say 'button, button'.

We only went to a few houses but Cora charmed them all and still got a good-sized treat pile. It didn't hurt that about half-way through our outing she understood that she could reach for the candy in the bowls. Some generous neighbors let her take advantage of that a little too much! Cora loved looking her candy over, she was especially fascinated with a little clear package of runts. Too bad she won't be able to eat much of it!

Cora eating some mini m&m's. Just her size. She also loved the smarties and candy corn we let her have too.

We're Now a Minivan Family

Well, we got it! We got a good deal on a 2007 Honda Odyssey. They said it was the best time to buy-- the end of the month and the end of the year. It's a pretty one! Cora loves it already. Now when you all come visit us, we can ride in one car, and there will be plenty of room for the new baby and our yet-to-be purchased double stroller in the spring!

New Stuff

Cora has a new bottom front tooth all the way in, and two molars just poking through.

Her new words this week are cute, mom (finally!), and baby.

She is getting less scared and more adept at going down the stairs. She won't do it on her tummy, but sits on her bum and turns to the side to slide down each step.

Ultrasound Appointment....

.... is scheduled for Monday, November 5th at 9:30am. We'll let you know if we find out any details!

Baby's First Moves

I felt the baby move for the first time last night! It's a little bit earlier than I felt Cora moving around in my tummy. But then again, we did have a yummy chocolate souffle with fudge center for dessert last night, so maybe the baby liked that! Or maybe the baby is just excited about our planned purchase for today.... more details to follow!

If you need a quick chocolate fix: A quick & easy recipe that can be mixed before meal, then put in oven at end of meal--for a delicious warm chocolate dessert. I can't take credit for it, it's from my latest email recipe exchange I participated in.


1 cup butter
1 1/4 cup semi sweet choc chips
Microwave 1-2 min & stir

Whisk together 5 eggs & 1/2 cup sugar
Combine with microwave mixture above
Then add 4 teaspoons (yes that's right tsp!!) flour
Add 2 tsp vanilla
Mix all together.
Spray 8 ramekins with oil
Fill 3/4 full. When it's time--bake 450 degrees 10-12 min.
Ovens vary--they are done with little ridge forms circle on rim edge, but
Looks somewhat fallen/still undone in middle.
Turn upside down onto dessert plate--middle will be somewhat runny--like
Fudge sauce--serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

New Stuff

Cora has a new bottom front tooth all the way in, and two molars just poking through.

Her new words this week are cute, mom (finally!), and baby.

She is getting less scared and more adept at going down the stairs. She won't do it on her tummy, but sits on her bum and turns to the side to slide down each step.

Tuesday in New York City

Tuesday we had yet another beautiful day! We were so lucky with weather the whole trip. We met up with my mission trainer, Kiasa, and her daughter at the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Cora loved it! There was one floor with activities and displays just for toddlers, so everything was just perfect for her.

Cora driving the New York city bus. I think she could have spent hours here pushing the buttons and foot pedals! Beep beep! Baby bus coming through!

Cora loved feeding this dragon his alphabet cards. When you put the cards in his mouth, the dragon would say the letter, a word that starts with that letter, and something about that word. The little boy on top of the dragon would gather up the cards for Cora and hand them to her to put in. They had quite the system going on!

Isabella (middle) and Cora playing on the toddler-sized couch.

Cora gathered up the balls and put them one by one through these holes to see how they bounced off the pegs and went down. I think she could have done this all day too!

Cora and Isabella playing with this air display. If the kiddies put their hand on top of the silver hand, air shoots up and blows the styrofoam popcorn around in the case. Pretty fun!

After the Children's Museum, Kiasa's husband met up with us for Indian food for lunch and then a walk through the Museum of Natural History. Cora slept through most of the museum, but woke up in time to growl at the bears! We then took a break at Central Park to let Cora run around, and then she took a nap while Kevin an I walked through a good long section of the park. We ended the day with Cuban food and a cab to a hotel near the airport so we could be close for our 6:30am flight.

We had such a fun trip! Thanks to everyone who helped us out!